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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: TRAIL BLAZERS vs CLIPPERS

April 27, 2016

Doc Rivers

Los Angeles, California: Game Five

Trail Blazers - 108, Clippers - 98.

Q. Doc, in terms of competitive spirit, what did you think of your team tonight?
DOC RIVERS: Oh, I thought we were extremely competitive. I actually thought the way we played in the first half was great. I thought we came out in the third quarter, and it's similar to whatever someone said that Game 6 in Oklahoma. Our energy was flat. Like they turned their energy up the beginning of the third, and we were exhausted. I had to call two timeouts. You could just see it. That's not conditioning, that was emotion.

And it was tough, like we did make a run and got back in, but now we're climbing back with a good team.

I like a lot of the things we did tonight. I thought we lost our spirit a little bit in one stretch when they started making just great shots, which we can live with, but I just thought it was our endurance early in the third, that stretch. They got back in the game. I thought that hurt us. And then the beginning of the fourth they did it again. I liked it overall.

Q. In terms of just generating offense without Blake and Chris, is that why -- do you just tell Jamal to just keep shooting?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I mean, him, J.J., Austin, the problem was you can see the one stretch, Jamal and Austin were exhausted, and they were stuck with the ball a bunch. It's tough, but we can generate more. I mean, hell, we scored more tonight than we scored the two games in Portland with the cold stretches that we had.

Honestly, I thought Jamal missed great shots at the one stretch, so he'll make more of those.

Q. What happened with the three-point defense in the fourth?
DOC RIVERS: Well, when they're banking them, No. 1 that's tough. We lost guys a couple times. I thought there was three times on switches when Lillard on McCollum are wide open. Clearly we did something wrong defensively, and it was communication. You know, those should never happen. Never happen.

Q. You alluded to emotional fatigue. What led to that?
DOC RIVERS: They wanted to win. They were just up, and sometimes you get up too much. They heard the same thing that you guys said. You know, for 48 hours. Hard game, can they win?

So I liked the emotion, but I just didn't think -- they didn't sustain it. Like the pace we played at in the first half was terrific, we just couldn't sustain the pace.

Q. How do you figure that out for Game 6?
DOC RIVERS: We'll be better. You're always better the second time anyway, so that's not going to be an issue.

Q. Doc, Blake wasn't there. Did he undergo some kind of procedure that kept him from being here?
DOC RIVERS: Blake was here.

Q. He was?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, he was in the back.

Q. Did he have some kind of procedure?
DOC RIVERS: Yes. I don't know what the procedure is. It's the same procedure -- it wasn't a -- I don't know exactly what it was, but I think the same thing Anthony Davis and a bunch of other guys are doing to --

Q. The PRP type stuff?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, whatever that stuff is, yeah. We took Advil. (Laughter). We didn't have the stuff they have now.

But that's what he did, the same thing.

Q. Did Chris and Blake talk to the team either before or during the game?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, they both were in at halftime. Chris obviously -- Coach Paul was terrific today. That's what I deemed him before the game. He was great. Blake was great at halftime with the guys.

They've been really involved with their teammates, you know, as much as they can be.

Q. What did you think of DeAndre Jordan's performance defensively, and then his offensive aggressiveness?
DOC RIVERS: Well, I liked it, you know, overall. We did a couple of things different defensively. You know, I don't know if I liked some of them or not yet. I've got to watch the film. And whenever we do anything defensively, it affects D.J.

We had him away from the rim a couple times, which in retrospect, I wish he was closer to the rim. He was switching on guards a little bit more, which I thought created confusion more in the first half. The danger with that for us is it makes D.J. do a lot of stuff, and I thought it affected him probably as much as anybody in the second half because those same pick-and-rolls that Jamal and Austin and General were coming off, D.J. couldn't roll anymore. He was exhausted. So they were able to double-team our guards. So I've got to figure out a better way of preserving D.J., because his energy for us is key to us being successful.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about starting Paul Pierce?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we just went with it. Paul didn't have a great game tonight, obviously, but we thought being a veteran, it was the right thing. We wanted to start with shooting on the floor, which I thought even though he didn't make shots, I thought the spacing was effective for us. So it was okay.

Q. Based on what you saw tonight, do you anticipate any starting lineup changes or rotation changes?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I mean, I don't know starting lineup yet, but I definitely saw some things rotationally that we have to do differently for sure.

Q. How disappointing has it been for you personally to see Paul kind of work his way through the season and struggle? I'm sure this is a moment he wanted probably really badly.
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, yeah, you want him to play well. I try to take the -- just my personal feelings out of all this. You want him to do well. But you want them all to do well.

I don't know if we handled it right this year with the in-and-out stuff or not. We've never done it with him. You know, it's funny, you see him in practice, you know it's there at times, you just don't know when.

Q. We don't get to watch practice; what do you see?
DOC RIVERS: I see him scoring. I see him playing with better rhythm. But I think this has been hard for him, too. It's not just on Paul, it's on us to find a better use for him in my opinion. He's never been like the fourth, fifth, sixth option when you've got the scorers that we have, and I think that's had to have some kind of impact on him, to be honest.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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